Fairy Tale Rug Update

The King, Queen and Princess have journeyed far since I last posted about them. They are patient travellers who really don't have a fixed destination or arrival time, so they often get set aside while more urgent projects pull me away.

Now the travellers are all hooked, along with their sturdy mounts. And I have hooked most of the flowers.

I have been back and forth on the background. I originally imagined it would be light, pastel versions of the colours in the riders and flowers. And with some help from my friend Lucy Richard at The Wooly Mason Jar https://www.thewoolymasonjar.com/ I dyed a couple of skeins of Briggs & Little yarn for the effect I wanted.

When I hooked some if it in, I loved how it outlined the floral motifs, but it seemed to get lost between the lightest horse, so I went back to the drawing board to come up with another plan.

After spending hours researching "fairy tale backgrounds" and tapestries, I realized that nearly all of them had dark backgrounds, which highlighted the characters. Lucy introduced me to one of her favourite artists Eyvind Earle who was a Disney artist who created backgrounds for movies like Sleeping Beauty. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artist-made-disneys-sleeping-beauty-enchanting-impossible-animate

I decided to try to replicate his deep blue/green using yarn from my stash. Here is a little bit of it placed, and you can see it versus the original light direction.

With more guidance from Lucy, the Dye Queen, I created a skein from one her formulas and am thrilled with the results. And once it is fully dry, I will hook some of it into different parts of the background. 

I may also take another page from Eyvind Earle's book, and create a lighter value of this to go around the riders, if this feels too dark. Plus I will sprinkle little bits of the colours from the flowers into it. 

What a learning curve and fun journey on this piece, with lots left to tackle. Including what to put in place of that star in the east ..... perhaps it can become the moon that is casting light over the characters, similar to how Eyvind had the light from the window creating the lighter arc of teal.